Don't Worry Everyone Awesome Hockey is Coming

As you know, I've been supportive of the Occupy movement, and I've been talking with a friend about what needs to get occupied (also when the guillotines should be deployed, but whatever, details.) and every now and then it's like "OCCUPY MOSCOW!" and then we remember that, you know, Putin.

"Nyet."

So that's suppressive.  And then we think of some other things to occupy, and then eventually, "OCCUPY ST. PETERSBURG!"

"Nyet."

Every now and then we try to switch it up old school with some "OCCUPY STALINGRAD!" action but it really always comes down to "nyet" and we kind of had to give up the dream of Occupying Moscow because the "ex" in "ex-KGB" is silent and no one wants to mess with Putin because he is terrifying.   It's hard to give up your dreams sometimes but that's what you have to do.  

Let's shelve that for a second and talk about another thing that we argue about, that being why the NHL All Star Game sucks.  There is general agreement that the All Star Game sucks because Gary Bettman is an ass, because that is the stock explanation for anything in hockey sucking for us, but there's also a consensus that the All Star Game sucks because there's no pride being played for.  The example that my friend usually defaults to is that of the 1979 Challenge Cup, which replaced the All Star Game and featured the NHL's best versus the Soviet hockey team, which was at the time one of the most dominant forces in the world.  In that series, there was a real us vs. them feel, and the hockey was spectacular.


This conversation usually devolves into "so if we could just get some Soviets back, we could have good hockey at the All Star Game again, even though everyone would get gulaged again and that would be bad."  And then we sigh wistfully because obviously with Putin (...nyet) in charge, things will continue to get managed because that is what he is good at.

And then this happened.

"No, YOU nyet!"

Russians are out in the streets protesting their faces off over the most recent election results, which featured extravagant election fraud and made everyone angry (and rightfully so), turning out up to 100,000 people into the streets in protest, which in Russia at pretty much any point in the past 100+ years is remarkable.  Needless to say, I decided that this would lead to an incredibly tight crackdown from the Putin government, leading to a new Soviet era and thus good hockey again.  How could this possibly go wrong??  I, for one, can't wait.

PS - effin' YOU GO, Russia!  Don't give up!